In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Introduction Cultural Leadership: The Audacity in the Ordinary A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. —Christopher Reeve The Precipice L loyd, an African American student who participated in the study that informed this book, saw his culture in the broad sense of a local and national community. He wrote, “It is my hope that I will one day be in a position to further dispel the negative notions by reaching back into my cultural community to pass on cultural lessons and provide an alternative future for those who come after me.” For Lloyd, cultural heritage can be used to save lives and change futures. Ultimately, what he is referring to is cultural leadership . By gaining a deeper, more critical understanding of their cultural heritage and history, individuals can be motivated to take agency and to create cultural change within their communities. Heritage inspires more than pride; it inspires leadership. Cultural leadership compels us to revive and appreciate a culturally driven life ethic—a sense of community, a drive to create and imagine, and a value for making time to tell the story. When we couple cultural heritage with our commitment to serve, it expands and adds depth, texture, and spirit to our leadership proxy. Having a solid cultural foundation causes us to look at the world more critically and to experience our sense of responsibility more deeply. Why? It is simply because cultural heritage (the act of passing on culture) causes us to remember and acknowledge the struggles of our parents and grandparents. Cultural heritage helps us to paint a complete and endearing portrait of our culture—one that causes us to step back, observe, and comment on its beautiful complexity. The moment when a young person first comes to see her role in her culture clearly, to appreciate and face her culture openly brings to mind the 12 introduction idea of a precipice—the moment in time when a person is drawn to the edge and either stands still or jumps. We have seen such scenes in the movies, where the good character, who is being chased by the bad character, runs right up to the edge of a cliff or rooftop and stops just in time to think through the situation. If he goes backward, he will confront the same evil that he was running from. If he moves forward, he will jump into the unknown, with only the hope that he will survive. Most often he chooses to jump, and most often he makes it. This is the situation we face as leaders within our families, our communities, and society at large. We reach a point in our lives where we must decide the following: Will I continue the dysfunctionality, or will I change it? Will I sit still and watch the oppression, or will I jump headfirst into social action? Ultimately, strong cultural efficacy motivates us to jump in and to look at our communities with hope rather than with disdain. Activism and Resistance Oppression is a running theme throughout this book. Oppression is not simply about others being unable to achieve what you have because they do not have the same privileges. The larger issue concerns the social systems that create a situation in which a person does not have access to privilege, opportunity , or a sense of inclusion. These issues include significant inequalities in the education system, the ways that urban poverty is geographically mapped and planned, inequities in the criminal justice system, a lack of economic infrastructure in poor communities, dysfunctional administrative policies in social agencies, and inadequate access to health care and health education. As Marilyn Frye reminds us in her classic essay on oppression, a commitment to social justice requires a macroscopic rather than a microscopic approach: The root of the word “oppression” is the element “press” . . . to press a pair of pants; printing press; press the button. Presses are used to mold things or flatten them or reduce them in bulk. . . . Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers, which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict or prevent the thing’s motion or mobility. Mold. Immobilize. Reduce. . . . It is the experience of being caged in. . . . Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus...

Share